Driven By The Hero (Hero Romance 1) (7 page)

CHAPTER NINE

Laura awoke almost two hours later. She found the still open bottle of mineral water and took a quick swig. She looked around her and saw that Jack had left her alone. She desperately craved a cigarette; and, as if by magic, spied an ashtray near the open patio. She threw on Jack’s t-shirt and pajamas, which had been discarded earlier. They hung loosely on her, as she shuffled out on to the patio. She savored the sun beaming down on her, looking over the bustling and tightly knit Providence skyline. When she was finished, she returned to spy Jack just coming back from his run, his highly terse brow glistening with sweat.

She gave a coy smile, “You must think I’m sort of selfish child, to abuse my body while you try to take care of yours,” she laughed.

“Not at all…” he gasped. “It’s like an old friend to me sometimes. But you ought to think about freshening up.” He sat down on his bed and began removing his running shorts and soaked shirt. “We’ve got to get a move on if we’re going to be there on time.”

“Oh? And where are we going?”

“Well, I don’t want to ruin the surprise.”

“This is the first time you told me of any surprise.”

Jack looked at her and threw his arms up into a mock pantomime. “Sur-prise!” He laughed, and pecked her on the cheek. “Come on… I’ll let you grab your suitcases from your room. Meet me back here in half an hour.”

Laura paused. After last night, she couldn’t very well go back to the conference, she thought. At the same time, what was keeping her in her old life anyways? Habit? Comfort? Nearsightedness?

On the other hand, who was this man anyways? What was his game? Could she trust him? What did he have in mind with his ‘surprise?’

I don’t even know his goddamned name
, she thought.

She looked back at him. He seemed so assured, his gaze so firmly affixed on her, that she couldn’t well refuse him. Be it for a night or for a week.

But what the hell is his name, anyways?

She walked towards the door, and looked behind her. “Let’s say I decide to take you up on whatever offer you have in mind. Could you at least give me the decency of telling me your name first?”

Jack chuckled, and threw her his key card. “For now, Laura? Just call me… ‘Mark.’”

TO BE CONTINUED…

SECRETS EXPOSED

Alpha Male Romance

CHAPTER ONE

Laura Kimball sat waiting patiently outside the Hotel Viking reclining on one of the benches as she leisurely smoked a cigarette. Her thin summer dress clung to her tightly, despite the swaying summer breeze. Normally, she’d be throwing on a baggy sweater to cover the flimsy cotton, self-conscious as she was. But it had been Jack’s insistence that she wear clothing a little too tight, a little too revealing for Laura’s modesty. Besides, thanks to the heavy wine she had consumed during the dinner, she was without a care in the world.

It had been five days since she had first met Jack, and she still had no idea what her “surprise” was. In fact, she didn’t even know his real name. It was his insistence that she only refer to him by the name of Mark. It was a role of virtual anonymity he maintained at all times; not only was she supposed to know nothing about Jack DiStefano’s personal life or his business associations, it was his persistent dismissal of all questions pertaining to any background whatsoever
—including her own—that caught her off guard. It seemed to Laura at times that one of the roles she was to fulfill required a deliberate erasure of history altogether. Neither of them was to have a past, mutual or otherwise. And what was to be of the present? It was merely a question mark; a cipher that stood between themselves and the present - a present without cause. And as for effect? It might take her a lifetime to figure out.

Laura felt as if layers of skin were being shed from her revealing a supple, subtler personality. All questions of responsibility had been stripped from her over the past week. She knew she could never go back to work after her mysterious disappearance from the conference; a disappearance she only explained in a curt text to Gloria:

“Sorry to do this but I’m going to have to tender my resignation immediately. I no longer see any point in continuing my career with this company. I wish you the best in the future.”

That was it. No explanation, no requests for severance, not even a two-week notice. Even Gloria’s repeated and frantic texts went unanswered without any rationale whatsoever.

To celebrate, Laura decided to get a complete makeover while Jack was busy finalizing the particulars of his auction (the ostensible reason they had traveled down to Newport.) Jack had already begun to take the lead in her transformation. He insisted on a full wardrobe change, including clothing that just two weeks earlier Laura would have dismissed as unrealistic. Yet when she stood in front of the full length mirror, watching the plunging necklines and short cut hems of her dresses hug her body, revealing the full length of her languid curves and soft, ample skin, she felt alluring for the first time in years. It didn’t matter that she was a size 14, even on the self-assuredly aristocratic streets of Newport, where every woman was an elfin-shaped advertisement for collagen disasters; she didn’t care about their smirks or haughty glares, or the way their husbands would linger a little bit too closely on her backside as she walked arm in arm with Jack into a restaurant. She had them outclassed in every respect imaginable, and she knew it. It was evident in her slow, feline stride and the tilt of her neck straight ahead, her eyes envisioning a horizon far beyond the cloistered and sterile walls; a horizon perhaps even beyond the very edges of the Atlantic Ocean itself.

She had her hair cut in a chin-length, asymmetrical bob and had dyed it a dramatic hue of cherry red, to compliment the shade of lipstick Jack preferred. At first, she was a little put off by the cut. She thought it made her cheeks appear more round; and to make matters worse, the shade was practically porno red. But when she saw Jack’s mouth curl in a sneer of lusty approval as she stepped through their hotel door, she felt validated in her decision.

As she sucked in the summer breeze, she couldn’t help thinking of where she would have been just two weeks ago; eating ice cream straight from the carton, and debating about mustering the courage to go to a TGIFriday’s where—if she was lucky—she might kill time in a fruitless session of groping with some junior level wealth manager who had one too many Long Island iced teas. She didn’t want to dwell on the past; in fact, every time she thoughtlessly chose to bring up her former life, Jack admonished her—even if it was with nothing more than a stern glance. But as much as she couldn’t help luxuriating in her newly found freedom, she couldn’t help but compare it to her former life. Perhaps we can’t really see the truth about ourselves until we’re wrenched away from it, she thought. Perhaps only thing we can really rely on is change. Perhaps…

Just then, the headlights of Jack’s Acura cut an arc against the tiled wall. He stepped out in that methodical, assured gait of his, his voice echoing like drops of rain against the cobblestone walkway.

“Have everything? Anything left behind?”

Laura looked around her to ensure her luggage was all accounted for. “Everything’s ready,” she replied cheerfully, her eyes glistening at Jack’s practiced smile. She grabbed a handful of satchels and a suitcase, as Jack helped load the remaining luggage in the backseat.

“There’s always one thing you leave behind,” he continued matter of factly. “Whatever it is, it can always be replaced. If it can’t, you don’t need it after all.”

He closed the trunk and opened the door for her. She made certain to straighten the folds of her skirt as she sat down, just like he had taught her to when they were driving. He liked to peer up and down her sturdy thighs, flickering dim and soft in the glare of passing streetlights.

“Shall we take the short way or the scenic route?” he asked as he put the key into the ignition. He smiled inwardly at the slight joke.

It was a little before 10 in the evening. Laura still had no idea where Jack was taking her.

“The scenic route,” Laura said, curling her arm in the cradle of Jack’s shoulders as they drove away. Her head felt heavy from the wine and she purred contentedly, drifting off to sleep like she always did on long car trips, ever since she was a child.

CHAPTER TWO

It was a little after 3 a.m. when they pulled into the driveway of the ranch house. Laura had been sleeping soundly the whole of the five hour drive, so when she awoke in the stillness of nature (after Jack nudged her awake), she was at first bewildered. She had grown so accustomed to the sights and sounds of urban life in Philadelphia over the years that even the brief respite of staying in a seaport tourist town had seemed utterly foreign to her. But now, as she stepped along the loose gravel driveway, in front of the imposing ranch with its dark shutters and stained wood shingles, a mere electric lantern lighting the way, she felt a thousand miles away from civilization -which, for all ostensible purposes, she may as well have been. Jack’s ranch house was located in upstate New York, in the sleepy city of Oneida. Despite the lateness of the hour, Jack seemed alert as ever, helping the groggy and yawning Laura out of the car, where she stretched and gazed up at the night sky. It seemed so austere yet close, as if she could extend her hand and reach the fine points of the stars.

“Are we in Canada, baby?” she lazily asked Jack, shuffling lazily across the gravel path.

“Not quite,” he chuckled. “We’re in upstate New York. Not quite home, but a little escape I have. Let’s get inside. It’s freezing out here.”

He led her across the brick threshold, and unlocked the front door, leading her inside through a long and narrow alcove into a cavernous front room. He switched on the lights.

“Make yourself at home,” he said, leading her to an expensive white leather couch.

She took in the opulent interior. In contrast to the rustic exterior, the front room was painted a deep Prussian blue, revealing fine tapestries covering the wooden floors and all manner of strange artifacts and memorabilia Jack had collected from around the world; distorted looking African fetishes and replica Mayan funerary masks; carved wooden Balinese idols and large, cast bronze Hindu statuary; and various Chinese calligraphy scrolls on rare parchment kept under glass dotting the walls. The whole gave the impression of a 19th century world traveler who had been plucked from his sojourns and planted in the middle of rural America.

She sank into the couch while Jack fetched a bottle of cognac and a glass from the kitchen. “Please, help yourself. I’ll be back with the bags soon. Take a load off, and I’ll show you where you’ll be staying.”

Jack left outside to fetch the bags while Laura tried to take in the strangeness of her surroundings. With Jack, everything seemed so new yet oddly comfortable. She would never had imagined that at the age of 34, she’d be shacking up with some mysterious older man in his summer bungalow in the middle of—well, she didn’t even remember where she was, but, there she was. An older man so mysterious, she didn’t even know his real first name! Everything seemed predicated on anonymity with this man, this “Mark.” She assumed that she was simply a diversion, a proverbial “other woman,” a novelty that would have suited her just fine. If that was so, then why this elaborate rigmarole? Why this air of mystery? Why the secrecy? Why spend the past five nights together, when Laura would have been more than happy to give him just one night of fulfilling his every fantasy and merrily be on her way? It didn’t make much sense to her at all.

Jack lugged the last of the luggage in with him. “Comfortable yet?”

Laura nodded, taking a sip of her cognac. She looked at him with appreciative eyes, wanting nothing more than to devour him right then and there. Jack, on the other hand, pretended not to notice.

“Let me show you where you’ll be sleeping.”

He led her down the hall to a small little room, painted in a deep forest green. It had little more than the bare minimum of furniture, although tastefully selected; a small cherry wood nightstand and a matching bookcase containing a few battered and antique looking books. A large, antique full length mirror rested in a brass stand taking up the whole of the western wall, and a cramped, single size bed tucked away in a corner rounded out the picture.

The bed threw Laura off for a second. It might barely be big enough for a teenage girl, she thought. How are we supposed to sleep together?

“There’s a closet directly behind the mirror,” explained Jack. “I’ll store your things there for now.”

“Awfully cozy for two people,” she couldn’t help but blurt out. “But I guess we can manage, as long as you’ve done this with someone else—”

“I’m sorry, Laura. But I’m afraid I don’t sleep in this room,” Jack elaborated. “Most of the time I’m here I spend in my bedroom, and I use that solely to catch up on my business.” He gave her a look that made it unequivocally clear that she was not to ask questions.

Laura looked crushed, but tried to answer coolly, “I… I guess so.”

“That doesn’t mean that we won’t be seeing each other. This house is hardly big enough not to bump into each other. It just means that I have my privacy as much as you have yours. Does that make sense?”

Laura nodded with a sad look on her face.

“Trust me, there’s plenty of our time together to explore alongside one another. Now rest up. It’s almost morning.” Jack gave her a peck on the cheek and walked away.

Laura stripped out of her dress and stood in front of the mirror, caressing her body underneath the dim ceiling light. Was it something that I said? Is he that tired of me already? Is there someone else?

She pinched a fold of her stomach and frowned in disgust. She slapped it firmly, and watched the ripples shake like tides of an ocean. She had a good mind to open the door and scream in Jack’s face. But what’s the use? She thought. I’m here now. Might as well make the most of it.

She walked out to the front room and grabbed the rest of the bottle of cognac. She didn’t even bother to pour it into a glass. She simply drank it straight from the bottle, listening to the incessant hum of crickets until the dawn drifted in from the half closed blinds.